“Can you do that for me, gorgeous?” Daddy asked Jules softly, keeping his hand against his heart and cupping the back of Jules’ neck, too. “Can you trust me?”
Santiago had slipped away without me even noticing, so it was just the three of us. And Jules must have realized that, because after a minute, his shoulders relaxed, and he gave the tiniest nod, melting into Daddy’s arms.
“Perfect,” Daddy said, his face breaking out in a huge smile. “Thank you.”
“We’re really all going to be together?” I asked, needing to hear it again.
“Well, of course we are, honey,” Jules said before Daddy could answer, straightening up and slipping a pair of glittering cat-eye sunglasses on, even though we were indoors. Then he grinned, a huge one, from the heart. “Our Daddy would be a fool to give allthisup,” he said, waving a hand between the two of us and then pulling his shades down just enough to wink at me. “Like I said, everything’s better with a little glitter and shine.”
“Well, said, gorgeous,” Daddy said, pulling us both in and kissing us again. “That’s exactly what you both bring to my life, and I hope you always will.”
Always. Daddy kept saying that. And it sounded... well, pretty much perfect.
And it turned out that Daddy kept his promises, every single one. And it was.
It really, really was.
Perfect.
Epilogue
Roman - Six Months Later
Touchingdown at Heathrow almost felt like coming home.
Almost, because even though Londonwasmy official home now—finally, after it taking more months than I’d had the patience for to transition my accounts at my former firm, wrap up my affairs in New York, obtain a work visa, and suffer through too many separations from my boys—it wasn’t where I’d landed that mattered, it was who I was with that would truly turn it into home.
And I’d explicitly told my boys not to bother coming to the airport to meet me, so no, I wasn’t home yet.
Isaac had pouted, Jules had ranted, but I’d been firm.
It had been a challenge to take care of them the way I wanted to from afar, but given that I’d only been able to fly them out to me in New York once, and made it back to England twice since the Cuffd-sponsored weekend where we’d officially become a throuple six months ago, I’d developed quite the repertoire of long-distance Daddying techniques.
I’d also developed a heightened appreciation for voyeurism, high-resolution video feeds… and a very strong right hand.
I zipped up my laptop bag and took my phone off airplane mode, preparing to deplane, and wasn’t surprised in the least when it immediately started pinging with messages from my boys.
Are you here yet?seemed to be the theme of most of them.
I grinned, tapping out a quick reply that I’d landed safely and would see them soon, and then quickly followed it up with a second message, telling them that I hoped they were being good for me and had gone to bed at a decent hour, the way I’d told them to.
After all, I needed them well-rested when I finally made it to the house and crawled into bed between the two of them.
There was no way I’d be able to resist waking them up then, and I knew neither one would want me to.
So when I got no reply, I was happy. They’d listened to me. And if I missed them all the more for being so close and yet still so far away, if I almost regretted that I’d put my foot down about them waiting for me at the house instead of coming to the airport—
Atourhouse.
Our new home.
—well, I was only human, after all, and Isaac and Jules had quickly become my everything, despite the distance between us.
And it was for the best. I wasn’t tired in the least since my body was still on New York time, but it was the middle of the night here, and what kind of Daddy would I be if I disrupted their sleep schedules when it wasn’t necessary?
An eager one, I admitted to myself as I skipped baggage claim and navigated toward customs.
I’d gotten some odd looks back at JFK for boarding an international flight with only a carry-on, but if there was one thing that packing up my entire life back in New York had taught me, it was that things weren’t worth getting attached to, people were.
